From BGHS DECA
The Bowling Green High School DECA members are excited to share their involvement with teaching financial literacy with middle school students in Matt Kern’s money management class.
The BGHS DECA program is a satellite of Penta Career Center and is made up of junior and senior students. The DECA program prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for college and careers.
The DECA Financial Literacy event requires members to use project management skills to initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control, and close a project. Senior BGHS DECA members and Project Managers—Peyton Green and Audrey Geyman— reached out to the Bowling Green Middle School Money Management Teacher, Mr. Kern, in hopes to engage with middle school students and try a new DECA project. Upon approval and a couple of meetings with Mr. Kern, goals were established, dates for teaching were identified,and a framework for how the whole DECA chapter would be involved in the project was designed. The project managers organized instructional slides, note pages, and educational games. Additionally, twice a week Ms. Geyman and Mr. Green had to coach and lead all senior DECA members to be prepared to be teachers of financial literacy terms and concepts.
The 24 senior DECA members have met with the 25 middle school students the entirety of February; meeting every Tuesday and Friday with the structure of senior members teaching one-on-one in small groups. The topics covered included the value of saving money, calculating simple interests, and different types of savings/investment accounts. The final lesson together was Friday, Feb. 24 and included a “Flip of the Die”, a Real World Budget Activity!
The BGHS DECA Chapter believes this collaborative project both connects middle school and high school students and exposes young people to important financial topics. Most importantly, senior DECA members have learned a lot about project management skills and enjoyed being positive role models and mentors to their middle school partners.
